Buddies by Nancy L. Hart

him called Lucifer before.”
    “That fella’s got a bunch of names. I don’t reckin that his folks could make up their minds what they wanted to call’m.”
    The boys walked on at a leisurely pace. They stopped, ate wild plums, laughed and joked about Johnny McGraw’s sissy ways. As they approached the outskirts of Ruby Creek, they could see all the way down Main Street. They stopped short and looked in amazement at an oncoming line of buggies and wagons, Ernie said, “Joey Frank, have you ever seen that many folks a-travelin’ together before in yore life?”
    “No, I ain’t, Ernie. Where do you reckin they a-goin?”
    “I don’t know, but the way it looks from here, the person that’s first in that line won’t be a-comin’ back for shore.”
    “Why do you say sech, Ernie?”
    “’Cause the closer they git, the more it looks like a hearse; that’s why.”
    “I thank yore right, Ernie, “’cause they turnin’ off now an’ a-headin’ down yonder to that big church.”
    “Yeah, that’s where they a-goin’ all right.”
    “Who do you reckin died, Ernie?”
    “I don’t know, but I bet’cha it’s a person that folks call a big shot. You can always tell by the mourners that follow along first behind the hearse. Now, you take a look at them women folks sittin’ up high in them fancy surreys an’ buggies. You look at all them diff’rent colored feathers they got stuck in them hats they a-wearin’; them ain’t yard chicken feathers that yore lookin’ at. Joey Frank, them’s store-bought feathers that come from no tellin’ where. Now take a look at them men folks, look at them pipes they a-puffin’ on, all shiny, brown, black an’ slim as your little finger! Them thangs ain’t made outta corn cobs; they is fictory made”.
    “How’d you learn about all that stuff, Ernie?” Miss Lester ain’t never teached sech in school.”
    “Learnt it from Gran’pa Herman on Pa’s side. He wuz a mighty smart man, knowed about ever’thang there wuz to know an’ he wuz the best wart doctor that’s ever been. Folks would come from ever’where to git him to take their warts off. They paid’m money to do sech too, like you’d pay a doctor with schoolin,’”
    “Wart Doctors don’t hafta have schoolin’, Ernie?”
    “No, they don’t hafta have schoolin’ ‘cause they born with some kind of magic water in their bodies.”
    “What’s magic water got to do with takin’ warts off a-
    fella?”
    “’Cause the magic water is what they take the warts off with, Joey Frank. I reckin that I can go on an’ tell you how Gran’pa went an’ done sech since he’s dead, an’ yore my best buddy; but if he wuz a-livin’, then I shore couldn’t do sech, ‘cause he’d skin me alive. I’ve heard him say many a-times that if he ever heard tell of anybody in his family a-tellin’ how he took warts off, then they couldn’t never set foot back under his roof agin. He wuz mighty strict about his wart curin’. He said that if it ever got out on him on how he cured’m, then folks wudn’t never come back to him agin.”
    “Why?’
    “’Cause he put pee on the fella’s wart; that’s why.”
    “Put pee on the fella’s wart?”
    “Yeah, what he’d do is go outta sight somewhere an’ pee on his finger, an’ in a little bit he’d come back an’ put that finger on the fella’s wart. He’d jabber somethin’ that you couldn’t make out, an’ that’d be all there wuz to it. In a few days the fella’s wart would just disappear an’ never come back, not even a trace.”
    As far as the boys could see down Main Street, standing on their tiptoes and stretching their necks, there was no end tothe long funeral procession. Joey Frank asked, “Ernie, if that dead person is a big shot, then who do you reckin they are?”
    “They could be a gov’nor or a Queen, ain’t no tellin’ who they are. I ain’t never heard tell of gov’nors or Queens ever bein’ from around these parts, but they might